


Columned Between

by plaguehaver



Series: Whumptober 2019 [2]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Explosions, Feelings, Gun Violence, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, Human shield, M/M, Whumptober 2019, Whumptober Day 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-24 16:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20910680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaguehaver/pseuds/plaguehaver
Summary: A mission goes bad and Daniel gets shot.





	Columned Between

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober Day 4! Prompt: Human Shield  
I think I'm probably gonna be a day late every time, whoops.  
Title from Joe Hawley's "Aristotle's Denial."

Daniel sprinted down the hallway, his shoes hitting the linoleum with harsh slaps as sirens blared on around him. Dust particles choked the air and invaded his lungs even as he tried to cover his nose with his shirt. His calves burned, the lactic acid buildup slowing his pace and disrupting his usually-trained movements. He came upon a branch in the hallway, planting his foot down and turning to fire a single shot at an oncoming security officer. The vibration of the recoil barely even registered in his mind, and he kept running. There was no time, no time.

It was easy enough to say that their mission had gone a bit awry.

It was one that had come from the very top, from Marcus Cutter himself, sitting in his gleaming leather chair in his immaculately-polished office. Goddard Futuristics' deal with Panacea Incorporated had gone a bit sour, and some information Goddard had previously lent to them was now being held with the intention of being used for blackmail. Needless to say, this couldn't continue. So SI-5 ended up somewhere in Siberia, freezing their asses off to recover some hard drives while feeling free to "inflict as much horrible, apocalyptic damage as you please," in Mr. Cutter's words. Really, the mission had been pretty run-of-the-mill by SI-5 standards, and it probably would have gone fine, had Kepler not been acting strange for the entire week preceding.

The change was so prevalent, at least to Daniel, that he could've marked on a calendar the exact day it happened, though he couldn't tell what in the world might have happened that day. It was a Tuesday. Kepler had walked into the SI-5's large office-slash-lab with a visible tension in his shoulders. The Major, a strictly diligent man, filed away a few papers and then left for the day. At _three in the afternoon_. Throughout the rest of the week, he was near-silent, only speaking to Jacobi and Maxwell for mission plans and matters of business. His usual flawless image developed a few chinks in its armor: a bit of stubble on his always clean-shaven face, lint on his jacket, his shirt coming untucked in a few places. On a normal person, these changes would've been negligible, but Warren Kepler was far from a normal person.

The most Daniel had heard him talk over the entire course of those seven days was on the day of the Hermes launch. The station had already gone up months ago, but the crew was being launched in a separate transport, Officer Klein among them. Daniel stood out on the asphalt next to Kepler, the Florida humidity soaking his shirt through and the heat waves coming off of the tarmac warping the air into dizzying ripples. Cutter had walked by them at some point, clapping Kepler on the shoulder with a curt, “Major,” and then walking off to attend to his business.

”Mr. Jacobi, If this launch is successful, things are going to be changing around here, _big picture_ things. I need to know something.” Daniel swallowed thickly.

”Sir?”

”Would you give up everything for the success of Goddard Futuristics?” A weak laugh found its way up from somewhere in the back of Daniel’s throat.

”I mean, I’ve already given most everything I’ve got, right?”

”And one more thing,” Kepler said. ”Would you give up everything for me?” Daniel’s digital watch beeped as it hit noon, and the transport lifted off with the fire of the sun, sending a heat wave shooting past them as the giant hunk of metal hurled itself out of the atmosphere.

The wind of the blast blew past them, sweeping back the few strands of Kepler’s dark hair that had fallen out of place. Daniel could see the hot, red light of the rockets reflected in his eyes as he kept his gaze glued to the transport shuttle.

He didn’t answer, letting the roar of the rockets fill the space between them. Kepler hadn’t spoken directly to him since.

That brought them to the day of the mission. Feeling the cold deep in their bone marrow, the three of them drove out into the woods, shutting off their car and packing bags of equipment and explosives. The plan was for Daniel to head into their base of operation first and set up a small series of explosions to cause a distraction so that the other two could get inside amongst the chaos, retrieve any and all Goddard property, and retreat before Daniel’s final explosion brought the place down. Alana was supposed to monitor their security and keep in touch with him to make sure he could get in with enough time to do what he needed to do, but Panacea’s increase in armed guards since their break with Goddard meant that Daniel had significantly less time than he expected. And, okay, he _might_ have been a bit thrown off by Kepler’s recent disposition, but that still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bit hard to set up such delicate systems while being shot at.

All three of them made it inside, but one of the larger explosions had gone off long before it was supposed to, leaving Maxwell cornered by collapsing rubble and Jacobi doing his best to walk off the head trauma he suffered. Kepler’s voice came over the comms as Jacob ran through the halls, trying to orient himself.

”Maxwell, are you going to be able to retrieve the hard drives in the west wing?”

”Nope,” she replied through heaving breaths. “But if it makes you feel any better, neither will Panacea. These things just got _absolutely_ crushed, thanks to he-who-shall-remain-nameless. My number one priority right now is going to be digging myself out, or else the two of you are going to be making your way home on your own.”

”Can you make it out before that last blast comes?” From over the comms came a sound like boulders tumbling down a mountain, before two sharp gunshots.

”Yeah, I think I’ll make it.

”Good. Jacobi, you alive?”

”_Alive_ is a bit too generous of a word for it,” Jacobi said, wheezing. “But yeah, I’m still kicking.”

”I need you on the east end _now_. Take as many of the drives as you can, put holes in the rest.”

”Roger.” Jacobi turned down a few more halls before ducking into a large server room that had been completely abandoned. With the dust finally settling, the place was eerily quiet, and it put Daniel on edge. He double and then triple-checked that the hall was clear before finally turning around to root through cabinets and drawers. He found what he was looking for without much trouble, really these people should have hidden their blackmail material better, when the sharp _click_ of a gun cocking made him freeze.

”Drop your gun,” a man’s voice said from behind him. Daniel might be a screw-up sometimes, but he wasn’t an _idiot_. The gun clattered to the floor. “Good,” the man said. “Put your hand up and turn around. Slowly.”

The man was only a few inches taller than him, but he was built like a truck. He had thick stubble along his square jaw, and his greying hair was coated with dust and plaster. When he smirked at Jacobi, it revealed a line of yellow, rotting teeth.

”Goddard intelligence, I presume?” He said in his thick Russian accent.

”Yep, nailed it in one. You people make a habit of making powerful enemies around here?”

”Not typically. Enemies do not usually survive for this long.”

”I suppose I could say the same.” Jacobi would’ve liked to say that time seemed to slow down in the following few seconds, but if anything, it seemed to speed up. Over the man’s shoulder, he saw the most miniscule flash of Kepler’s dark jacket, and before he even knew what was going on, the Russian had an arm around Jacobi’s neck and was swinging him around, placing him between himself and the door.

Kepler fired, and Jacobi felt a blooming pain erupt in his left shoulder. The man’s forearm crushed his windpipe and he dug the barrel of his pistol into Jacobi’s temple.

”I see you weren’t alone,” the man said. At the sight of them, Kepler’s fingers twitched around his gun, but he knew that if the man’s reflexes were good enough to bodily haul Jacobi’s entire person around at the smallest hint of a threat, there would be no way Jacobi could survive the split-second it would take a bullet to make its way across the room.

”It seems we’ve found ourselves in a standoff of sorts,” Kepler drawled, hsi eyes not leaving Jacobi’s own.

”That does seem to be the case.” Kepler was looking at him in that way that said _I’m not going to bail you out this time_. If Jacobi wanted to get out of there before the place blew, he would have to think of something himself. He watched Kepler for any hint of how he was supposed to get out of this, and for the smallest fraction of a second, he saw his eyes dart down to Jaocbi’s hip before jumping back up to look at the man behind him.

”I feel I should let you know something friend,” Kepler said. “This place is set to blow in about, oh, three minutes?” _What was Kepler thinking? Did he really think Jacobi could-_ “What that means is that if any of us want to make it out of here in one piece, we’re going to have to compromise.” _This dude had the reflexes of a cheetah. Even if Jacobi could get his hunting knife out without him noticing, how was he supposed to-_ “So here’s what I propose- you drop that gun right there, we’ll hand over any and all property we have acquired during our stay.” _Jacobi had to do it, though, there was no other way._ “And then the three of us can hightail it out of here before we get crushed under three-floors’ worth of rubble.”__

_ __ _

_ __ _

The man laughed slowly. “Unfortunately, I do not think that will be possible, _friend_. If this building is going down, the three of us are going down with it. That is- unless you would like to leave the two of us here and save yourself.” Jacobi’s hand grazed against cool metal.

”As enticing of an option as that is, Mr. Jacobi is a rather skilled operative and it would be a shame to have to lose him to one of his own explosions, not to mention terribly ironic, so I’m afraid we won’t be able to take you up on that offer. Jacobi?”

And in the blink of an eye, the man was bringing his gun hand down to grip at the serrated hunting knife Jacobi had just buried in his side. Jacobi ducked down, out of his grip, and Kepler finished the man off with a single shot to the head. With no time to lose, Jacobi retrieved his gun and hard drives, and the two of them were racing out of the building, making it out just moments before they heard the building’s supports coming down.

Kepler never did apologise for shooting him, but Jacobi couldn’t remember a single time he had ever heard Kepler apologise, that just wasn’t something he did. Instead, the Major sat across from him in their hotel room, their knees knocking as Kepler’s steady hands removed the bullet from his shoulder and stitched up the wound. And on the plane back to Canaveral, as Jacobi drifted off in that place between sleep and awake, he could almost feel the way those strong, deft fingers carded softly through his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'll be adding this to my Whumptober 2019 series where I'll do whichever prompts I feel like doing.  
Check me out on my writing blog, [@plague-haver](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/plague-haver) or my personal, [@thedominoswizard](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thedominoswizard).


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